Arafat's Envoy

Perhaps Yasser Arafat can't move in Ramallah, but Nabil Shaath, the embattled Palestinian leader's ambassador to the outside world, can't keep still in Cairo. First he's making a cell-phone call to the State Department. Then he's at the Arab League headquarters. Then it's off to a television studio. In a hotel suite overlooking the Nile, he's finishing up a TIME interview and is about to do another with the Tel Aviv daily Yedioth Ahronoth . His mission is not only to win safeguards for Arafat's life. "We have to proceed back to the peace process," he says.

The optimistic remark...